You Can't Call Him That
by Lils
Summary: Roger is left alone to babysit Mark's nephew who leaves with an expanded vocabulary. One shot.


Disclaimer: I do not own Rent.

A/N: I'm actually just trying to clean out my document manager, so I have all these stories in there. And I'm always like, yeah, I'll go back and work on them _someday_. But it wasn't going so well. So, I wrote this like a year ago for speedrent on livejournal. Didn't win anything. But it doesn't hurt to post it.

Warning: Some slight OOC-ness on Roger's part and swearing.

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_You Can't Call Him That_

Roger closed his eyes and played a few more chords on the guitar, persistently ignoring the irritating knocking noise as it gradually became louder and louder until there was finally a voice that went with it.

"Mark! Mark! Open this door, Mark Cohen!" an unfamiliar woman's voice screeched on the other side.

"Mark's not here!" Roger yelled back feeling extremely annoyed as he put down the guitar, walked over to the door, and flung it open.

"Where is he?" the woman asked. Roger identified her as Mark's older sister, Cindy. She was standing in the doorway with a small boy who looked to be around three or four. Roger had grown up with both Mark and Cindy, but he had never really been very fond of her. So Roger simply shrugged in response to her question before walking back over to his guitar again.

"He was supposed to babysit Michael," she complained to Roger as she pointed to her son. Roger simply gave her an uncaring look as he sat down and picked up his guitar. Clearly all he wanted to do was play his guitar. He looked surprised after a few seconds when he looked up to see that she was still here. He gave her a questioning look before turning back to his guitar.

"I can't take him with me," she stated giving Roger a poignant look.

"He's not staying here," Roger responded without even bothering to look at her.

"Just until Mark gets back," she pleaded with him.

"Mark's in Santa Fe, for all I know. Who knows when he's coming back," Roger said. It was partially true he didn't know where Mark was or when he'd be back. But he was fairly sure Mark wasn't in Santa Fe.

"Come on, Roger, we're old friends," she said desperately. Roger wondered what she had planned that was so important that she couldn't take her son to it.

"I hated you," Roger replied genially, still not bothering to look up from his guitar.

"I'll pay you," she said without even waiting for an answer. "Okay. Good. Here's my cell phone number if you need me. There are toys in the bag. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

She quickly slammed the door leaving Roger alone with the small boy. He looked up expectantly at Roger.

"Hey," Roger said. The little boy didn't say anything. Roger looked back down at his guitar with the pleased feeling that he was about to make a few easy bucks. Roger started to play a few chords that sounded slightly like Musetta's Waltz when the little boy's eyes filled with tears and he began to cry.

"Little shit-head," Roger muttered angrily putting down the guitar. "It's called a work-in-progress. Everyone's a fucking critic! Shut up!"

Roger attempted to continue to go on playing, but the little boy only continued to cry louder. Roger got up and walked over to the little boy, not quite sure what to do. He didn't have any younger brothers or sisters or cousins or anything that could have prepared him for something like this.

"Sorry," Roger apologized lamely in hopes the little boy would accept the apology and stop, but he continued on as if he hadn't heard him.

"I want my mommy!" the little boy screamed at the top of his lungs through the tears.

"Me too," Roger responded feeling somewhat desperate as his head started to ache. The kid could cry.

"She said Uncle Mark was going to watch me! Not you! I don't like you!" he cried.

"The feeling's mutual," Roger responded.

"Roger! What did you do?" a voice came from the doorway. An extremely flustered Mark stood in the doorway. He looked like he only just remembered that he was supposed to be watching his nephew.

"I was just playing my guitar and the little shit-head started crying," Roger defended himself. "It's not my fault he has bad taste in music."

"You called him a shit-head? You can't call my nephew a shit-head!" Mark protested as he picked up the little boy and started to rock him gently to calm him. The boy's crying slowly began to subside as he clung tightly to his uncle.

"Why not?" Roger asked clearly not seeing any problem with calling young children shit-head.

"Because…" Mark started to say. He stopped, looking unsure what to say. "You can't say that kind of stuff in front of little kids."

"I don't like _him_, Uncle Mark," the little boy spit out venomously. "He's mean and he plays bad, scary music and he says bad words!"

"Little shit-head!" Roger yelled at the little boy.

"Roger! Stop saying that! What if he picks up on it and starts to say it too?" Mark asked, looking concerned about his nephew as he glared at his roommate. Roger merely shrugged not understanding why it would be such a bad thing if small children ran around screaming shit-head. It would be an improvement over the crying which had finally stopped.

Mark picked up the bag of toys and pulled out a few, so that his nephew would have something to do. Roger glared at the little boy, as he carefully picked up his guitar again. He played a few notes to see if he would start crying again, but he just kept playing with his toys. Roger gave a small relieved smile.

"Shit-head!" the little boy suddenly screamed as Roger let out a laugh. He didn't mind that his guitar playing was interrupted this time.

"Michael!" Mark yelled at his nephew as he frowned at Roger. "Don't say that word."

"He did," Michael whined pointing at Roger who was immensely enjoying the new conversation.

"I thought you didn't like him," Mark reminded his nephew, hoping that he could convince him not to say shit-head anymore.

"I don't," Michael said as he stuck his tongue out at Roger. The small child had a proud smile on his face as he used the new words that he had learned. "He's a fucking shit-head!"


End file.
